Airtight cold storage compartment



March 2, 1943. E. L; MOHR ET AL AIRTIGHT COLD STORAGE COMPARTMENTS Filed Jan. 11, 1941 j INVENTORS BY 1 E ATTORNEY? Patented Mar. 2, 1943 AIRTIGHT COLD STORAGE COMPARTMENT Earl L. Mohr and James 0. Harvey, Sioux City, Iowa Application January 11, 1941, Serial No. 374,034 1 Claim. (01. 62-1) A further object of our invention is to provide a chamber within a larger cooled room which chamber is completely air-tight and sealed,

against air currents and the like to provide a "variety of desirable features which will be explained.

A further object of our invention is to provide a compartment of this nature which, by its inherent characteristics, will eliminate the necessity for careful packaging of material such as edibles in the compartment, which will prevent the transfer of odors from edibles within the compartment, as well as from areas within the outer cold storage room itself.

A further object of our invention is to provide this arrangement so that objectionable odors cannot be transferred from one compartment to another.

A further object of our invention is to prevent, by such an arrangement, the disagreeable features of contamination of food products in the possibility of refrigerant gas escape, etc.

A further object of our invention is to lengthen the time of storage without dehydration to prevent loss of weight as well as shrinkage.

A further object of our invention is to provide a compartment arrangement of this type which can be more cheaply manufactured inasmuch as the compartments can be made in a unit form without extra braces and the like which are necessary for louvred types or those types where air currents are used.

A further and important object of our invention is to provide such an arrangement so that the refrigeration process is applied with a greater efliciency in that the transfer of colder volume air from the room temperature or coils to the compartments is effected more directly without the losses occasioned by air currents, and to provide a direct cold contact through the walls of the compartments into the sealed space therein.

With these and other objects in view, our invention consists in the construction, arrangement, and combination of the various parts of our device, whereby the objects contemplated are attained, as hereinafter more fully set forth, pointed out in our claim, and illustrated in the accompanying drawing. in which:

Figure 1 is a sectional view taken substantially longitudinally through a cold storage room having suitable insulating features and showing the sealed compartments therein,

Figure 2 is a detail viewed along the lines 2-2 of Figure 4.

Figure 3 is a section through one of the compartments taken along the lines 3-3 of Figure 4, and

Figure 4 is a forward elevation of one of the compartments.

Our invention contemplates the provision of completely air-tight and sealed compartments located within a cold temperature room or storage space to provide the various advantages mentioned heretofore in the objects of our invention, and which will preserve and save edible products such as meat and the like in the individual sealed compartments without the necessity of Cellophane or air-tight wrappings. and which, through the characteristics of a sealed volume space, will provide other advantages which are apparent.

We have used the character in to designate an insulated top wall of the cold storage room ii, and the characters l2 and Hi to designate forward and rearward walls, the character It the floor thereof, and the character IS the side walls thereof. Supportedby means of the brackets Hi from the top wall II) are the substantially lengthened hollow rectangular members ll in which is positioned a continuous length of pipe coils ,arranged in any desired manner and which pipes enter at l8 and exit at [9 with the pipe structure being within the .member IT. The refrigerant pipe members within the member ll are adapted to cool the cold storage space I l down to the certain desired temperature, and it will be understood specifically that the member can represent any other type of heat absorbing apparatus.

The members 20 are arranged in nested or in compact grouped arrangements in any desired manner within the room II, and can include the bottom walls 2| which include the unit depressions 22 adapted to nest within the depressions 23 in the top walls 24 of succeeding compartments 20. The compartments 20 also include the side walls 25 and the rear wall 26 which rear wall includes the marginal flange 21 which marginal flange is securely welded at 28 about the entire perimetral boundaries of the compartment or locker space in order to provide a completely sealed and air-tight structure. At the forward end of the compartment 20 we further provide a forward wall 29 also having the flange 21 and which is welded in the same manner. The forward wall 29 includes the depressed circular portion 3|! in which is located the opening 3|, and the depressed portion 30 is cemented to an annular rubber gasket 32.

The door of the arrangement includes the circular rather heavy metal plate 33' which is substantialiy the diameter of the gasket 32 and slightly less than the diameter of the portion 30.

Attached to the circular plate 33 is the cylindrical keeper 34 through which passes the round bar 35 which is attached thereto.

A pair of guides and pressure members are indicated by the character 3 and which are attached at 31 to the wall 29 of the compartment which members 36 include the outwardly extending portions 38 and the angularly extending portions 39. One of the members can include an opening at 40 in which a padlock can be placed to lock the door, which padlock is indicated by the character 4|. Attached at 42 to the door 33 is a chain 43 which is attached at 44 to the forward wall. 29. In sealing the door against the compartment to provide an absolutely air-tight locker, the plate 33 is located centrally over the opening 3| and over the gasket 32, and the bar extensions 35 are placed above and below the members 36. As seen from Fig. 4, the bars are then rotated in a clockwise direction which, due to the angularity of the members 39, will carry the bars 35 toward the wall 29 and thereby carry the plate 33 firmly against the gasket 32 providing a completely sealed door. The compartment can be readily opened by unhasping the lock 4| and by turning the bar 35 in a counter-clockwise direction, which will allow removal of the door which can then be suspended from the chain 43.

It will be noted from the foregoing description that the compartments 2!! are thus completely sealed against air or any other gases and provides a compartment having the air within in an inert condition, thereby preventing the transference of air through convection by differences of temperature or through other reasons. In this way, since the compartment has no ventilation openings and the like, which ventilation openings would allow the transference of air, no outside odors in the room'l5 can penetrate into the compartment, which odors would have the tendency of spoilage, contamination, and the like. This feature is important inasmuch as in many cases objectionable odors of tobacco and other odors which would be present on persons entering into the room l would prevent the transference of such odors to the edibles in'the compartment 20. Also, as stated in our objects, the

various edibles can be placed within the compartment without transference of odors from one to the other and without the necessity of careful wrapping of the edibles, since, naturally, inasmuch as the air is not moving within the container, the odors will not be transferred. Such edibles can include the following: fish, fruits. meats, vegetables, fowls, etc., all being in the same compartment without the aforesaid transfer of odor.

Also, due to the fact that there can be no conditions of evaporation present, drying out or dehydration will not occur and any number of articles can be placed in the compartment without even requiring any types of sealing on the individual article. Also, by virtue of this construction, the cold temperature is transferred through the walls oflthe locker into the inside without requiring any other mediums except the coils and the natural effect of heat or cold transfer through the conducting mediums. A further feature of our invention is that any bodies of air which travel from the upper cooling coils down to the compartments, and in so doing attain a higher temperature, will not cause dehydration through expansion or the absorbing qualities of the warmer air, since the compartments are tightly sealed. It will be seen further that other advantages are readily apparent in our invention. 7

Some changes may be made in the construction and arrangement of the parts of our invention without departing from the real spirit and purpose of our invention, and it is our intention to cover by our claims any modified forms of structure or use of mechanical equivalents which may be reasonably included within their scope.

- sealing said door in relation to said compartment, said sealing means including a gasket positioned between the door and the compartment, said door including a bar attached thereto, means receiving the ends of said bar and exerting pressure against said gasket upon rotatable movement of said bar and door.

EARL L. MOI-IR. JAMES O. HARVEY. 

